Red&Black (11-14-14)

November 14, 2014

Red & Black

The Student Newspaper of Washington & Jefferson College

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT LIFE “For a college student, traveling is a costly endeavor. It is a huge personal struggle that involves time management, willpower and determination.”

W&J Tear Down This Cardboard Wall

OPINIONS

“Last week America once again tore its eyes away from Kim Kardashian and Modern Family to trudge to the voting booths and add its drop of water to the vast ocean of votes deciding the makeup of the government for the next two years. .”

THE SUPERBURGER “In return for the faculty’s kind offer of helping the bears return to their fellow carnies, these esteemed thespians have offered to put on a show for the whole campus.”

INDEX: Campus-News ..... 1-5 Life ......................... 6-9 Arts .................... 10-13 Op-Ed ............... 14-17 Satire............... 18 Sports ................ 19-20 PLEASE RECYCLE THIS PAPER

Caitlynn Gilles/Red&Black Photography Editor

Caitlynn Gilles Red & black Staff On Friday November 7, 2014 our German department here at W&J hosted an event for high school seniors who are currently taking German. They came in the morning and the day started out with some icebreakers but they had to talk in German, then they moved into some German history. And they continued to talk about different things evolving Germany.

The reason the German department is celebrating this is because on this day in history, on November 9, 1989, was when

the Berlin Wall finally came down. A little surprise on the tables awaited the seniors, it was a button, a pen, and a notepad for each of them and they all had the 25th anniversary picture on them.

These gifts actually came from the German embassy, especially in order to celebrate the anniversary, which was indeed very kind of them, and there is a lot of extras including T-shirts.

Continued CAMPUS NEWS, PAGE 2

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14 N ovember 2014

How Does Early Registration for Classes Benefit Students?

Amiti Sharma Red&Black Bus. Manager

With the registration period to sign up for classes right around the corner, students tend to feel vastly overwhelmed.

On top of homework, sports and clubs, signing up for classes probably seems like the last thing that they have time for.

However, few actually understand the many benefits of registering early and planning your courses for the next semester in a timely fashion.

In fact, several Ivy League Universities, such as Harvard

and Penn, highly recommend and may even require that their students register early.

Students who do so have a higher chance of getting into their desired courses and won’t miss the deadline to sign up.

Also, these students will get registering out of the way sooner, letting them get back to focusing on homework, sports and clubs. Follow these tips about registering for next semester’s classes! First, what many students don’t know is how advantageous signing up for morning classes can be.

While waking up in the early hours of the day can be

challenging, when classes are over, you’ll be surprised at how much free time you have to work and relax the rest of the day.

Another great factor of morning classes is that they tend to hold fewer students.

Therefore, there is greater intimacy among the students and professors who will likely become closer due to the small amount of students enrolled.

Signing up early is also crucial for classes that are very popular among the student selection.

Next, registering will confirm your spot in a highly preferential course that many

Student Spotlight: Macie Sower ‘17 Katherine Campbell Red&Black Contributor

Macie Sowers is a freshman who came from Hubbard High School in Hubbard, Ohio, a small town near Youngstown, Ohio. She decided to attend Washington & Jefferson College looking for academic rigor and an equestrian team.

She also said she wanted to be “far away enough from home that [she] wouldn’t go home every weekend, but also close enough that [she] could go home if [she] wanted.”

When asked how she likes it here at W&J, Sowers replied “I really like it here! Most people are pretty nice. The weather could be a little nicer, but I’m from a little farther up north, so I’m pretty used to it now.” Sowers is currently “very undecided” as to her major.

“At this point, it’s not science or math and that’s all I know.

I’m considering maybe art, English or history,” she said.

Sowers stated that her favorite class this semester is her FYS class, Monster Culture, with Dr. Mayer which, to her, is “weird because [she doesn’t] even like scary movies that much!” Sowers is very excited to take a travel intersession class in the future and to complete a Magellan Project.

When asked about a possible Magellan Project, Sowers said, “I’m really excited to do a Magellan. I didn’t apply for one this year because I don’t have any concrete ideas, but I definitely want to apply next year.”

Sowers is a member of the Washington Fellows and is a Jaywalker here on campus, but one activity that she is

involved in that gets her most excited is the equestrian team.

Having been around horses since she was six, Sowers loves to ride and, in general, be around horses.

When choosing a college, she pinned an equestrian team as a must-have for the college that she would eventually attend. When asked what kind of things Sowers does while at a horse show with the equestrian team, she replied, “We go in classes and do what the announcer says, basically.

It’s kind of hard to explain.

Everyone should come see instead!” Sowers currently does not have any definite plans for the future. “Like my major,” she said, “I have no idea. It changes weekly.”

Sowers is confident, though, that whatever she eventually ends up doing will be great.

students are interested in.

Dr. Jeff Rhodes from University Registrar at UTPA stated that, “Students who procrastinate on registration often are unable to get a seat in the courses they need for their degree, and as a result they may enroll in unnecessary courses which results in more student debt, longer enrollment and lost income and opportunities," he said.

"Students who register early get the courses they need and are able to graduate earlier, which opens the doors to higher paying jobs and many new opportunities.” At Washington & Jefferson, students

are required to speak with their academic advisor about the classes they would like to sign up for.

Once they have spoken and the advisor believes they are ready to sign up, they will give the student’s account consent to sign up. Then they are ready to sign up.

The RAs, professors and upper classmen students can assist anyone who has trouble or questions about registering.

Meeting with advisors, discussing future classes and majors and finally, registering early are the steps that many students take which leads to a promising future.

W&J’s Berlin Wall __________From COVER, Also another event that happened on campus was that the German department also had students make boxes for “the Wall of Change”-Dr. Atzler.

The Wall of Change is the German department’s very own Berlin Wall, made up of boxes that many different students drew artwork on only one side, in order to represent the West side of the Berlin Wall.

Now the artwork was only allowed on one side of the box, the other side was to remain white in order to represent the East side of the Berlin wall.

Some of the high school seniors decorated boxes for

The Wall of Change, although some of them decorated the whole box, which they weren’t supposed too. But it was very nice of them to contribute to our version of the Berlin Wall. So on November 9, 2014 the German department put all the boxes together in the Burnett center on the form of a wall.

Then after taking some pictures the professors had students go behind the wall and on the count of three we pushed the wall down.

After that it was time for the clean up, we had to first pick up all the boxes and the professors decided to recycle all the boxes.

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CAMPUS NEWS 3

Books Connect W&J Lauren Horning Start BYP Program toBenjaminFranklin.

Catherine McAdoo Red&Black Staff

If you walk into the library, you will find books.

There are books about airplanes, books about trees, books about the history of China and even books about books.

Counting them all would take hours and likely produce a number nearing one hundred thousand at least.

But this was not always the case.

When Washington Academy was first chartered in 1787, there were definitely not hundreds of books.

There weren’t even tens of books, because paperback then was expensive.

Instead of being made of trees crushed to a pulp, paper was often made out of a type of cloth.

While this was a lot longer lasting, to the point where documents from hundreds of years ago can look merely decades old, it was a much more difficult process.

As a result, anything made from paper, especially books, which are made from a lot of paper, was much more expensive than it would be today. No

one will deny that an academy, especially Washington Academy, needs books for students to learn from, but because of practical monetary restraints this just wasn’t possible.

Until Benjamin Franklin came along, that is. In 1789, when Washington Academy was still in its infancy, Benjamin Franklin in his generosity donated fifty pounds to the school to be used to purchase books for the students. He always did value education.

Fifty pounds may not sound like much, but today that sum would be worth at least one thousand dollars.

Even back then, a thousand dollars was more than enough to buy a few books. And so our library began.

Since then, many more books have been added to this library, until finally we have a full library of more books than I care to count.

Most of these are shiny and new, less than fifty years old.

But if you take an adventure down to the lower level in the library, deep in the bowels of the historical archives there exists a dusty old cabinet, which contains dusty old books.

Five of these are some of the original books purchased back in 1700s using Benjamin Franklin’s donation, though unfortunately at least one is unreadable due to the fact that it was written entirely in Latin.

Courtesy Washjeff.edu

Carley Adams Red&Black Editor

While most students use the Magellan award to conduct research overseas, Lauren Horning ’15 used her Magellan to spend the summer of 2014 interning as a youth supervisor with the Braddock Youth Project (BYP) in Braddock, Pa., a community east of Pittsburgh.

BYP is a collaborative initiative of Grow Pittsburgh and AmeriCorps that aims to advance the town of Braddock by training local high school students to work on sustainable community development projects.

“My job as a youth supervisor was to teach the students how to grow their own food and to educate them about food systems,” Horning said.

Horning – a double major in environmental studies and Spanish – said she grew up eating foods from her family’s

garden, and she thinks many people don’t realize how incredible food can taste when it is prepared well and made with fresh produce. She said the popular mentality of getting more food with less money is a dangerous one that leads to poor health, and she hopes to play a role in making the popular mentality one of placing a higher value on fresh, healthier foods.

BYP is a selective program, and Horning said the connections she has made and the experiences she has had at W&J played instrumental roles in obtaining the internship.

Her journey began at The Commons, which houses W&J’s dining facility.

“I was talking with Chef Doug about my interest in local foods and teaching about sustainable agriculture,” she said. “Doug knows the directors of Grow Pittsburgh, and he suggested that I apply for the youth supervisor position at Braddock Farms.”

In addition to teaching the BYP youth skills related to sustainable living, Horning

also used her internship experience to teach other practical skills they will use throughout their lives.

“The youth learned about all aspects of gardening – planting, weeding, making and spreading compost, tilling the soil, trellising and harvesting.

But behind the scenes,” she added, “I taught them about team-building, leadership, and job-readiness skills. They [also] learned public speaking skills by giving tours to groups that came to the farm.”

Whether she was leading her students through an educational curriculum about sustainable living, helping her students host an herb-planting workshop at the Braddock Senior Home or growing fresh produce at Braddock Farms, Horning was always working with the future in mind.

“My dream job would be working for a restaurant or food company with local outsourcing, which means connecting people with local foods and farms,” she said.

In the meantime, Horning plans on working to improve sustainability

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14 N ovember 2014

Pulitzer Prize Winner, Walter Sherwin, Speaks On Campus

Courtesy washjeff.edu

Sarah Peterson Red&Black Staff

How did the creator of the atomic bomb go from the cover of time magazine to being a disgrace and becoming suicidal during the 1950’s?

This question was part of Professor Walter Sherwin’s lecture “Oppenheimer’s Shadow: His nuclear world and yours” last week at Washington & Jefferson.

Professor Walter Sherwin wrote several books about 20th century history and has won a Pulitzer Prize for his work “American Prometheus.”

His novel is about the life and legacy of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the head

scientist on the Manhattan Project, which was to create Oppenheimer became the Project or the atomic bomb in a super weapon to destroy most popular scientist in America, overthrowing Germany.

World War I. He, at the end of the Einstein for that title, and Oppenheimer had a different college career; he war, was on the committee became involved in the government graduated from Harvard in three “The bright colors recall the color educating people on the effects of years, he went to Cambridge and palate of the 1970’s, and the piece is nuclear science, as almost committed a new field made of steel to recall the prominence itat was suicide over the time. the depression of the steel industry in Pittsburgh As he became associated with more popular the failure of being his number of an experimental enemies grew. physicist.

After During the leaving Cambridge he who picked the sites for the Cold War his enemies began completed his graduate degree bombs to be dropped over using his associations to in Germany as a quantum Japan. He also fell into a huge communist party to destroy physicists, then turned to depression over the aftermath his career. Oppenheimer teaching physics in California. of the bombs. He created a lost his security clearance During World War II, weapon, which could destroy and had to go to trial under the suspicion of being a Oppenheimer became the the world. head of the secret Manhattan After the war ended, communist. After a lengthy

trial Oppenheimer was acquitted but the damage was done. He died of throat cancer in 1965.

Oppenheimer knew after the atomic bomb that the world was going to change.

A country could threaten the world with an atomic bomb, which could destroy everything.

The hydrogen bomb, which the US created in 1950, could become “Genocide to civilians” as Oppenheimer stated.

This is a fear that we today live in, even though we might not think about it. Countries such as North Korea, Israel and Iran all claim to have nuclear weapons and threaten to use them if necessary.

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Red & Black

S E C U R I T Y LO G S Date: 11/12/2014 Incident: Theft An officer noticed a female run out of a dorm. She stopped a crosswalk. The student looked like she was going to press the button to cross the street. Instead she began removing the crosswalk sign from the pole. Then she started running back to the dorm where officers caught up with her and escorted her to the Campus and Public Safety office.

Date: 11/8/2014 Incident: Informational A woman called the Campus and Public Safety office identify herself as the mother of a student. She said she was worried that her son had not gone to work and his work place had contacted her. She said she tried to contact him via cell phone, but that wasn’t successful. She requested that his room be checked.

An officer went to the student’s room and knocked on the door. The student answered immediately opened the door and said he was fine and said he would call his mother.

Date: 11/7/2014 Incident: Found Property A student came to the Campus and Public Safety office and presented a strange packaged she had just opened. The package was from someone with an unreadable name from Midway, Georgia. The contents of the box were a pair of Adidas tennis shoes and a cheap folding knife. The student stated it was strange because she didn’t know anyone from Georgia and the shoes were not in her size. Later, Campus and Public Safety has determined who the intended recipient of the package was.

Date: 11/7/2014 Incident: Informational Two W&J students ran into the Campus and Public Safety office to report that they heard gun shows near the intersection on College and East Maiden Street.

The students said they were walking back to campus and when they heard the gun shots they just took off running, afraid that they were being shot at. Campus and Public Safety told them that they knew about the situation and with certainty knew that the students were not the target.

CAMPUS NEWS 5

Red & Black Established 1909

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Kyle Sossi Emily Bitting Bailey Murdick Amiti Sharma Lauryn halahurich Carley Adams Brittany Graft Emily Sterk Thomas Marcotte Caitlynn Gilles Mike Hornak Carolyn Tomlinson Gabriella Porazzi Dale Lolley

LAUREN HORNING STARTS UP BYP PROGRAM AT W&J _________ FROM LAUREN , Page 3

“My dream job would be working for a restaurant or food company with local outsourcing, which means connecting people with local foods and farms,” she said.

In the meantime, Horning plans on working to improve sustainability and healthy eating through her connections on the W&J campus until she graduates in 2015.

“I owe a huge thanks to Chef Doug at The Commons for fueling my dreams, cooking incredible foods and being more of a friend and supporter than just a professional contact. He and I are putting together a local foods dinner here at W&J,” she said. “He will design the menu from local season foods bought within 50 miles of campus.”

Courtesy broddockproject.org

The local foods dinner will take place on Friday, Nov. 14 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Parcell Room in the W&J Commons. There are 45 seats available, and reservations can be made by emailing Lauren Horning at horningle@jay.washjeff.edu.

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Marijuana’s ‘Inevitable’ Legality Josh Dewaine Red&Black Staff

The war on drugs has been under constant attack and has faced some sharp criticism over the past couple of years.

This is due to a number of high-ranking political and economic advisors who have explicitly pointed out the numerous failures perpetuated by the so-called movement.

According to WhiteHouse. gov, in 2010 the United States spent more than $40 billion in an attempt to curb the drug trade and drug use across the country. The war on drugs has

been a massive flop, and at the forefront of the issue has been a relatively harmless drug: marijuana.

Marijuana has been illegal since the early 1970’s, when it was placed on the list of schedule I drugs. A schedule I drug is a “dangerous substance that has no recognized medical use and has a high potential for abuse.

Other substances that are on the schedule I list include: heroin, bath salts, and MDMA,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Marijuana has been recently proposed as an extremely beneficial and powerful medicinal drug that has multiple uses: it helps to eliminate pain, it increases appetites in patients with

eating disorders and it assists patients in coping with the effects of chemotherapy, which attempts to eliminate different forms of cancer.

There are currently four states that have legalized the recreational use of marijuana: Alaska, Colorado, Washington and Oregon. These states have led the way.

On Nov. 4, Washington, D.C. voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for its residents over the age of 21. This was one of the most highly anticipated votes since the nation’s capital has a massive impact on other state and federal legislation.

The legalization of marijuana has a number of important implications. Most importantly, those who have

had minor possession offenses will no longer carry them on their records.

Some state benefits include the possible revenue from taxing marijuana which has been estimated at over $35 billion each year nationwide.

Whenever Colorado legalized the sale of marijuana, the first week of sales brought in

over $5 million and estimates claim the annual total could reach $850 million.

Marijuana has been found, by a number of studies, to be considerably safer than both cigarettes and alcohol.

The subsequent federal legalization is essentially inevitable at this point for every state.

long campaigns that involve growing out facial hair.

Movember is championed by the Movember Foundation which originated in Australia in 2003.

It encourages men to grow moustaches for a whole month which helps to create a dialogue about men’s health issues. This helps the foundation raise funds for the issues the organization wishes to support.

The No-Shave November campaign encourages participants not to shave but to let their beards grow for a whole month.

This campaign is about bearded men having fun

yet doing chartable work simultaneously.

Men can save the money they’d spend buying razors and shaving cream for November and then donate the money to these charities.

The general purpose of each of these campaigns is to raise awareness of men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer and other cancers common among males.

In 2004, an unrelated group in Melbourne, Victoria organized an event where 30 men would grow a moustache for 30 days in order to raise awareness for prostate cancer and depression in men. This group would later become

the Movember Foundation charity.

Both campaigns are now prevalent all over the world.

In 2007, events were launched in Ireland, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Spain, the United Kingdom, Israel, South Africa, Taiwan and the United States.

Many celebrities have supported the Movember Foundation.

Some include Australian World Champion surfer Mick Fanning, sports presenter Cameron Williams, author, columnist, and presenter Samantha Brett; ex-Big Brother housemate Ryan Fitzgerald, Queensland

cricket all-rounder Andrew Symonds and several AFL players.

In 2009, some Australian national rugby union team players were seen sporting moustaches during the Autumn Test Series.

Anyone can volunteer or donate to the causes by joining either No-Shave November or Movember and help to raise awareness for men’s health issues.

You will simply be required to not shave for whole month and sign up on the following web-pages in order to donate your money to these worthy foundations: www.no-shave. org and us.movember.com.

No-Shave November: What’s It All About?

Ioseb Jorjoliani Red&Black Staff

Every year in November, certain groups of men attempt to grow moustaches, beards and goatees.

These men let their hair grow without shaving for the entire month of November.

Hairy participants should know, however, that the two campaigns Movember (for moustaches) and NoShave November are not the same competition. They are, however, both month-

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LIFE 7

Red & Black

Planning Your Journey Abroad: Tips from a Seasoned Traveler

Courtesy newhdwallpapers.in

Ioseb Jorjoliani Red&Black Staff

For a college student, traveling is a costly endeavor. It is a huge personal struggle that involves time management, willpower and determination.

New travelers might ask themselves: “Where should I go? Do I have enough money?

How much should I spend?

Where can I find the tickets at the right price? How will I get there?”

The answers to these questions can be found very easily.

First of all, planning carefully is the first main step towards a worry-free journey.

This is especially true for those who have never been

abroad. The first experience for them will be depressing and exciting at the same time.

First, you need to choose the country you are most willing and able to visit. Here are two web pages that could help you: www.responsibletravel. com or www.backpackingspirit.com.

I would suggest reaching out to local travel agencies for your first time traveling. Sometimes they have the cheapest deals you could ever find.

After selecting a destination, you should begin to look for some ways to get there.

Through my own traveling experience, I have found that the easiest and most simplistic web page to book tickets on is www.expedia.org. Kayak is also fine, but I would use Ex-

pedia first. Try to look up the tickets on Monday and Tuesday nights, since that is when web pages upgrade their offers.

You might be lucky and get the best deal possible!

Finding a place to stay while abroad is another major issue to brainstorm before departure.

This requires a much more meticulous search and more of your own personal time.

Looking for hotels and comparing their different and difficult-to-understand fees might kill your vibe while on your trip, so it is best to take care of lodging ahead of time.

Hostels are always cheap and fun options. If you don't want to pay anything for lodging, check out couchsurfing and make friends in the pro-

cess. If you find a host family, and can afford to have a longer stay, think about doing some housesitting.

The options are endless.

Find the one that best suits you and matches your budget.

When you get to your dream location, you won’t need to save much money for food if you purchase local, fresh cuisine; it is always the cheapest option.

You will better experience what local, exotic foods your location has to offer which, in turn, might help you better understand the culture you’re visiting.

Trust me - go for the local cuisine and you won’t need to spend much money on food.

Sightseeing is a great way to entertain yourself while traveling. When you go

abroad, plan beforehand what you want to see. Map out the places you’d like to visit and budget the money you’d ideally like to spend visiting them.

The best web page I can recommend that will assist you with scheduling the places you’d like to visit is www. sightseeing.com.

You can look up tours and attractions in over 100 countries on this web page.

The final tip is to always stay positive and prepare yourself for any obstacles you might face while abroad.

Do not to get upset with the little issues. While traveling, you might encounter some problems, but try to face them energetically and perceive everything as a part of your great big adventure.

Keep calm and travel on!

8 LIFE

Female Writers Break into Sci-Fi

14 N ovember 2014

The Flu Vaccination: Red & Black

“The Most Reasonable and Successful Tool to Combat Viral Infections” Courtesy chimeradave.blogspot.com

Shannon Adams Red&Black Staff The Golden Tentacle Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and many other awards are now seemingly being handed over to female science fiction (sci-fi) writers. These females are taking the generally male-dominated genre by storm.

The female writer that is receiving the most attention and is most frequently talked about is Ann Leckie and her book Ancillary Justice.

Leckie won at least five awards for her sci-fi novels.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Leckie stated, “It was kind of like hallucinating. It’s still kind of like hallucinating.

I’m sitting here on my couch and I can turn my head and see them [the books] on the mantle and it’s really hard to believe that they’re there.”

This could translate into two things: the demand for female writers is again at a periodic all-time high (since its last zenith in the 1970’s), or, this could mean progress for science fiction and other literary genres which female writers often attempt to break into.

It could, on the other hand, be just another peak and drop like the many other times throughout history. It all began with Mary Shelley’s work of science fiction entitled

“Frankenstein” and Margaret Cavendish’s work “The Blazing World.” Sci-fi is a maledominated genre because the women who write aren’t given as much recognition as men.

This does not mean that women aren’t making their own skillful contributions and that they aren’t getting their novels noticed, but that they have to find their own unique way to go about doing it.

Many of these science fiction female writers turn to the internet to get their stories out. In today’s generation, one can connect with almost any audience through social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

This is exactly what science fiction women writers do. They find similar writers and interested readers who will help get their novels published and get spread the word for them. Some women try this alternative route in order to get their novel, whether sci-fi or not, the recognition it deserves.

These women writers often use male pen names so that no one can trace their pen name back to them—the female author. This may or may not fix the problem these females are trying to avoid. No matter what, these female writers will never stop writing or stop trying to get their work out to the public and be recognized in this male-dominated genre.

Courtesy mensjournal.com

Josh Dewaine Red&Black Staff The seasonal flu infects a reported three to five million people per year and is one of the most widely studied viral infections currently.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that roughly 250,000 to 500,000 people infected each year die due to their symptoms.

These people are mostly young children or the chronically ill and elderly.

The WHO explicitly states that the best way to combat the viral illness is to become vaccinated. The vaccination for influenza was one of the earliest and most well-studied vaccinations to this day.

Vaccinations have been used effectively and safely for over 60 years. They help to prevent the spread and help to curb the severity of viral infections. There

are many misconceptions about how effective vaccines are. The absolute truth is that vaccinations are the most effective, safe, simple, cost-efficient and easy-touse methods of treatment currently available.

Many people infer that they received a vaccination and then got sick shortly after (two to seven days later) the vaccination was administered.

Although this sometimes may occur, the vaccination requires roughly two weeks in order to build the proper immune-system response in order to fight off an infection when it occurs.

If the person is infected with the virus prior to building the necessary immune response, then the vaccination cannot be effective.

This is why the WHO, Center for Disease Control (CDC) and every local health care facility urge the widespread use of vaccination.

According to the CDC, 70 to

90 percent of vaccinations are successful in treating transmission of the virus in healthy individuals under the age of 65.

The vaccination has also been found to be 90 perecent successful in treating death from the virus. The overwhelming statistics and the massive body of research done on vaccines shows that vaccination is successful in preventing infections or diseases.

Vaccinations treat the symptoms of the virus and lessen the time the infection will last. This, however, will not stop people from claiming that the vaccination is not effective or that it gives people autism. There is absolutely no research to support either of these claims and there is a colossal body of evidence against them.

The influenza vaccination will continue to be the most reasonable and successful tool to combat viral infections.

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Red & Black

Quasar Home to Largest Collection of Water Josh Dewaine Red&Black Staff

Twelve billion light years away from Earth there is a super massive black hole known as a quasar that is surrounded by the largest collection of water in the known universe.

Astronomers from the University of Maryland made the discovery back in 2011.

The cloud is absolutely massive, spanning hundreds of light years in diameter around the quasar. Our Earth harbors 326 million trillion gallons of water, taking that times 140 trillion gives 4.564 with an additional 31 zeros after that. The collection of water is roughly 4,000 times

more water than the entire Milky Way Galaxy has in it.

That's a lot of water.

The collection of water is roughly 12 billion years old.

This supports hypotheses that water, one of the building blocks of known life, has been prevalent in the universe since the universe was only 1.6 billion years old, which is relatively young in the scheme of things.

Scientists have been tracking known collections of water throughout the universe back farther and farther in time based off how old the light near the water is.

The hope is that one day we will know rather definitively when water first began to form in the universe, or

that if it was in sync with the Big Bang that occurred 13.8 billion years ago.

The prevailing scientific studies show that oxygen could only be formed in stars due to being so dense comparatively to hydrogen, which

was produced in mass during the Big Bang.

The earliest stars formed roughly 400 million years after the Big Bang occurred.

This should put the theoretical cap of the age of water at roughly 13.4 billion years.

Courtesy wikipedia.com

Scientists will continue to search for older collections of water than that found around the super massive black hole, but it may be unlikely that there will be a more easily found collection due to the size.

The 48th Annual Country Music Awards Caitlynn Gilles Red&Black Staff The CMA Awards, also know as the Country Music Association Awards, happen once every year, and this year is the forty-eighth year. It is country music’s biggest night.

The awards are presented to country music artists based on voting by CMA members and country music fans.

The very first awards were presented in an untelevised ceremony in Nashville's Municipal Auditorium.

There are 12 categories annually and they are: Enter-

tainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, New Artist of the Year (previously known as the Horizon Award until 2008), Vocal Group of the Year, Vocal Duo of the Year (introduced in 1970), Single Artist of the Year, Album of the year, Song of the Year, Musical Event of the Year (split off from the Vocal Duo award in 1988 as Vocal Event), Music Video of the Year (introduced in 1985), and Musician of the Year.

Also, the award show features performances by top country music artists. In 2002 it included snippets of hit

songs by up-and-coming new artists before going to commercial breaks.

A recent improvement is that in 2013, through a partnership with Spotify, fans could predict the CMA Awards winners and enter to win a trip to the 2014 CMA Awards.

The awards also usually have one or two country artists host the awards, and they try to have funny saying throughout the night in order to keep everyone laughing.

The past few years Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood have hosted them and

they do a great job. I know one of my favorite things is watching the live performances throughout the show, and also voting for my favorite artist.

This year’s winners were: “Automatic” Single of the YearMiranda Lambert, “Drunk on a Plane” Music Video of the Year- Dierks Bentley, “Follow Your Arrow” Song of the Year- Kacey Musgraves, “We Were Us” Musical event of the Year- Keith Urban, Blake Shelton won Male Vocalist of the Year, Brett Eldredge won New Artist of the Year, Florida Georgia Line won Vocal Duo of the Year, Little Big Town

won Vocal Group of the Year, Luke Bryan won Entertainer of the Year, Miranda Lambert won Female Vocalist of the Year, the album Platinum won Album of the Year- by Miranda Lambert, and Mac McAnally won Musician of the Year (Guitar).

Something special that happened this was that Vince Gill Received CMA’s Irving Waugh Award of Excellence, and only one other artist has one that and that was Johnny Cash.

This year’s show was amazing and I am looking forward to next year!

A R T S

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Country Music Column: CMA Awards Nathan Kanuch Red&Black Staff

For the column this week, I decided to do something a little different. After watching the CMA Awards last Wednesday, I found it would be impossible to write a column on a singular topic.

The CMA Awards are an important event in the country music industry, so I want to offer some brief observations on how things transpired through the night.

Country Collaborations: Both Kacey Musgraves and Eric Church sang with legends, effortlessly merging today’s musical stylings with a couple of country music giants. Musgraves teamed with the “Queen of Country Music,” Loretta Lynn.

The two sang Lynn’s “You’re Lookin’ At Country.”

The backing band did not stray from the original sound of the song and the performance was thoroughly traditional.

Eric Church and George Strait joined together for Strait’s “Cowboys Like Us.” The two men had no plan on creating the perfect harmony; rather, Church and Strait sang in a laid-back manner, focused solely on entertaining the audience.

Church was smiling throughout the performance and was clearly enjoying singing with the country legend. Their styles are immensely different, but Church and Strait gave perhaps the best performance of the night.

A Return to Simplicity: Two artists who have

received criticism from traditionalists and those outside corporate Nashville, Luke Bryan and FloridaGeorgia Line, gave simple performances.

Unlike the previous award shows where the two artists combined hip-hop, back up BMX bikers and everything but the kitchen sink, Bryan and FGL trimmed things down.

Florida-Georgia Line sang “Dirt” and stayed sitting on stools, giving a heartfelt performance.

Even Bryan stayed away from his typical song themes of partying and sang about a former love.

Overall, the night was almost devoid of complicated elements and effects.

Even the edgier performances were devoid of the elements that had littered the past several years of the CMA Awards.

Little Big Town collaborated with Ariana Grande and Miranda Lambert sang with Meghan Trainor.

These two performances were perhaps the most complicated events of the night.

Pop collaborations are often unpopular with country music fans, which prefer to see their artists teaming up with other country artists a la Strait and Church and Musgraves and Lynn.

Nonetheless, the pop and country collaboration was not as offensive as collaborations in the past (think Ludacris with Jason Aldean at the CMT Awards).

Awards: There was no doubt the politics of Nashville were once again at play in voting for the various awards that were given out.

Entertainer of the Year, the biggest award of the night, was given to Luke Bryan, a slap in the face to country music purists. Also up for the award were Keith Urban, George Strait, Blake Shelton and

Miranda Lambert. No doubt, Strait was a favorite headed into the night after winning the award the previous year and concluding his retirement tour earlier this year.

Lambert and Shelton probably split votes while Urban was a severe long shot.

It came down to Strait and Bryan; Bryan’s camp lobbied hard after coming up short last year.

Other awards of note included Group of the Year, which went to Little Big Town.

After being inducted into the Grand Ole Opry earlier this fall, Little Big Town no doubt will look back upon this year as a milestone after beating out Lady Antebellum for the award once again.

Male Vocalist of the Year went to Blake Shelton for the fifth straight year, arousing a bit of suspicion from the country music community, especially considering his wife, Miranda Lambert, won Female Vocalist of the Year. CMA politics at play as usual, according to many.

Finally, Eric Church and Dierks Bentley, artists who both received critical acclaim from across the music world, were shut out from the big awards.

Both men will be looking to the Grammy’s and ACM Awards to receive the awards and accolades they richly deserve.

Church and Bentley, however, are two men who have never gave too much concern to the awards they receive; they prefer satisfying their fans, taking risks and making the music they love.

Perhaps that is why the critical favorites rarely receive the awards that should have gone their way.

Instead of the politics of Nashville, they prefer to concentrate on their music.

And as their fans, isn’t that the greatest award we can have?

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Red & Black

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Review Jordan Bechek Red&Black Contributor

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, a new title in the Call of Duty series was released entitled, “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.”

Call of Duty is a first-person shooter video game, meaning it is played through the eyes of the protagonist (the player), and is gun and projectile-based weaponry, centered.

The series began in 2003, and has rapidly grown in popularity since. Today, every gamer has heard of, or played, a Call of Duty game, as a new installment is released every year.

Two chief developing companies, Infinity Ward and Treyarch, share the franchise. Initially, the two

companies centered their games on past wars and confrontations. Then, the idea of modern warfare was injected into the sequence. This year however, Treyarch took a relatively drastic turn in a new direction: the future. In the latest chapter, the year is 2054 and tensions between the United States and North Korea have heightened to the point of war.

Here, the player steps into the boots of Private Jack Mitchell to defend his country from the KVA, a Korean terrorist group targeting the United States and her people.

Within this new futuristic environment, the player has a wider range of weapons available to him or her.

In addition to conventional firearms, some of which seen in previous titles, laser or energy directed weaponry is now a component of the player’s arsenal.

Also, not only have new weapons been supplement-

Michael Jacobs Performance Shannon Adams Red&Black Staff

November is Native American Heritage month, so to celebrate, a Native American musical performer came to share his music with the college.

On Nov. 6, Michael Jacobs came to Washington & Jefferson to play in G&Ts. He was also here to play for us last year, so he showed up sporting a W&J t-shirt that he got last time he was here.

To open, he played a soothing song on his flute; the music stopped all conversation that was happening before Jacobs was playing.

After he finished that song he addressed the audience.

He did point out that he was not what we would expect

as being a Native American.

Jacobs said, “You look around for the guy with the beads and the buckskins, but as you can tell I have none of that.”

He wants us to know that we can’t always fit them into a stereotype.

He moved on to playing the guitar, which he played very well. He accompanied the guitar with his voice, not in the way that you might be expecting.

He did not play traditional Native American music with chanting in his native language, but more modern with the same values and meanings as the traditional music.

His music talked of respect, courage, honesty, wisdom and how we need to live a good life here on Earth.

After a few guitar songs, he returned back to his flute,

which he gave us a little history on. His particular flute was made out of cedar. He said they were originally courtship flutes.

They were used when a young Native American boy would like to court a woman.

He would play her songs on his flute.

Jacobs told us a story about when he was young and courting with his flute.

He didn’t have to worry about remembering Valentine’s Day or needing to part with his hard-earned cash; he just had to play his flute well.

Music for Native Americans is a big part of their culture, they use it to tell stories and create memories.

We should be thankful that Jacobs came to our campus to share that part of his heritage with us.

ed, new features such as boost-jumping, dodging, sliding and dashing allow players to brave similar situations in new, exciting ways. Overall, the game has been well received by gamers and game critics alike.

On both Xbox and PlayStation platforms, reviews of the game reflect positive gaming experiences.

Although the game, like many before it, has its downsides, the popular monthly video game magazine, Game Informer, gave it a 9/10.

Daniel Tack, from the magazine, summarized the game, describing it as “an own special surge forward while maintaining the gunplay that makes the series fantastic.”

With this in mind, players should expect to see “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare” as the active game being played under many of their friends’ gamertags or PlayStation ID’s on their friends lists.

Poetry Corner Diana Ciarallo Red&Black Contributor “Oracle” Swirling sensations- Divine Euphoria, Apollo ravishes you in golden rays,

Gives you visions as bright as the sun or prophetic dreams of bloody days.

A sensual seduction of sound and scent, Leaving you wondering what it meant.

The walls seem to dance within your trance and Apollo kisses you eyes.

The chants and prayers lift you to Olympus, seduced by divinity and honeyed lies.

Apollo to Cassandra: he gave her a gift, now a curse that she begs him to lift.

Lost to horrors only moments away, she refused the sunlightmarked a madwoman, where no one will allow her to have her say.

The swirl of sensations- Divine Euphoria, Ravished by Apollo with his golden rays,

Blessed with visions of the golden sun, yet cursed with dreams of bloody days.

Seduced by golden kisses and honeyed eyes, But they don’t know of the horrors, They can’t hear your cries.

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Best Motivational/Inspirational Songs Delta Omnicron

Alternative Rock, Pop Rock, 1997 Tubthumping, Chumbawumba I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.

(Fun fact: tubthumping is going out and getting drinks and singing after protesting) Hip Hop, R&B, 2003 Where Is The Love?, Black Eyed Peas Take control of your mind and meditate. Let your soul gravitate to the love.

It has been a really long week for most of us, so I’m going to keep this simple.

Below are a bunch of songs that you may or may not find inspirational or motivational in some way.

They are not in any particular order, but most of these songs follow the idea of having the strength to do something or to be empowered.

You will see what genre they are from, the year they came out, the title, artist name and a few of the lyrics.

Try listening to one or two of them as you finish your work and prepare for the craziness that is about to come as we approach Thanksgiving break. Good luck on all your tests, papers and projects.

Rock, 1981 Don’t Stop Believin’, Journey Don’t stop believin’ hold on to that feelin’.

Soul, Rhythm and Blues, Pop, 1967 Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell ‘Cause baby, there ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you.

Pop Rock, 1985 Walking On Sunshine, Katrina and the Waves I’m walking on sunshine (x3) and it’s starting to feel good.

Stop Sign: Courtesy mycrazyhealthylife.com

Soft Rock, 1971 Imagine, John Lennon You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will be as one.

Reggae, Jazz, 1988 Don’t Worry Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin In your life expect some trouble, when you worry you make it double, don’t worry, be happy, be happy now.

1983 What A Feeling, Irene Cara Take your passion and make it happen.

Be Happy: Courtesy thedailybuddha.com

Pop Rock, Power Pop, 1998 You Get What You Give, New Radicals This world is gonna pull through, don’t give up, you’ve got a reason to live.

Reggae, 1973 Get Up Stand Up, Bob Marley Get up, stand up, stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, don’t give up the fight.

Alternative Rock, Post-Grunge, Hard Rock, 2004 Dare You To Move, Switchfoot I dare you to move, I dare you to move, I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor, I dare you to move, I dare you to move, like today never happened.

Hard Rock, Glam Metal, Alternative Metal, 2000 It’s My Life, Bon Jovi It’s my life, it’s now or never, I ain’t gonna live forever, I just want to live while I’m alive.

World Music, Reggae Fusion, 2009 Wavin’ Flag, K’naan When I get older I will be stronger, they’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag.

Sunshine: Courtesy polyvore.com

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Taylor Swift Sparks New Spotify Controversy Sarah Peterson Red&Black Staff

After her smash album “1989,” Taylor Swift has made headlines again for pulling all her songs from musicstreaming site, Spotify. The controversial move is angering fans and igniting a debate over how much artists are being paid for streaming of their music from sites such as Spotify. More artists are speaking out and taking sides on the topic.

Spotify is a music-streaming site that charges $9.99 per month to listen to music. It is a good way for listeners to experience to new music and become fans of artists they might be unfamiliar with.

According to E Online, “The popular streaming music service typically pays less than one cent per stream of a song to those involved in its creation, which can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for popular bands and artists, including Swift, but often just pennies for relatively unknown acts, who often agree to have their tracks included almost

solely for the exposure.” Front man of U2, Bono, has been recently speaking out about Spotify: "Spotify is giving up 70 percent of all their revenues to rights owners. It's just that people don't know where the money is because the record labels haven't been transparent...That hasn't been the demand: that will be the demand."

Another opponent of Spotify streaming is Aloe Blacc, known for songs such as "The Man" and "I Need a Dollar," as well as his collaboration with Avicii on the hit EDM track "Wake Me Up," penned an op-ed in “Wired” titled "Streaming Services Need to Pay Songwriters Fairly.

"Avicii's release “Wake Me Up” that I co-wrote and sing, for example, was the most streamed song in Spotify history and the 13th most played song on Pandora since its release in 2013, with more than 168 million streams in the US," he wrote in the Nov. 5 piece, referencing another popular music service, which is more similar to Internet radio and offers only samples of songs on-demand. "And yet, that yielded only $12,359 in Pandora domestic royal-

Courtesy musicclout.com

ties—which were then split among three songwriters and our publishers. In return for co-writing a major hit song, I've earned less than $4,000 domestically from the largest digital music service," he said in the E Online Article.

Will this be the end for music streaming sites such as Spotify or will it just change how the sites will pay the artists? Only time will tell.

J.K. Rowling Releases New Harry Potter Short Story Sarah Peterson Red&Black Staff While all the muggles were running around on Halloween trying to figure out their Halloween costumes, J.K. Rowling was releasing a new Harry Potter short story.

It focused on Harry’s nemesis Doloris Umbridge, his teacher in the Order of the Phoenix, who, besides Lord Voldemort, is the only other person that has physically scarred Harry.

The short story described her life and how she became the evil character she is in the last Harry Potter books.

The story is found on Pottermore, the free site for Harry Potter fans that Rowling heads, publishing other stories about various characters and their biographies.

Umbridge was born a half-blood; her mother was a muggle and her brother did not have any magical powers; this tore her family apart resulted in Umbridge’s hatred of non-wizards.

Her father, who worked for the Ministry of Magic in the maintenance department, was practically disowned by the power-hungry witch for her own advancement in the Ministry of Magic.

She used people and took credit for the work of others work to insure that, by the age of thirty, she became head of Magical Law Enforcement. Umbridge never

married, although marrying a powerful man would have insured her a powerful position in the government.

Rowling states that men found it hard to be around her, though they appreciated her “hard work and ambition.”

Umbridge took the position as the Inquisitor of Hogwarts because she hated her time at the school and felt that it was “her duty to return and wield power over those she felt were due.”

She also, during this time, had to try to overcome her phobia of half-beings.

After being fired from Hogwarts, Umbridge went back to the Ministry, which was then being controlled by Voldemort. This was a time Umbridge favored, due to the extreme power she was given.

Rowling released the new short story about Umbridge as a way to get people excited for her new trilogy, based on Harry’s textbook “Fantasic Beasts: And Where to find them.”

The release date is for 2016 and Rowling herself is writing the screenplays for the movies.

It was interesting to read more about a character who impacted Harry’s life in a profound way, like Umbridge did.

Because of her, Harry distrusted the Ministry of Magic, which caused several of the events in the latter books. Rowling also describes her inspiration for Umbridge as a teacher whom she hated immensely.

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Will Social Media Change Journalism as We Know it?

Bailey Mudrick Red&Black Pro. Manager

Nowadays when we talk about the news or an article we read online, it is mostly because we saw it on Facebook first.

This is not a bad thing, but it is a fact that since Facebook was created in 2004, a lot more people are able to go to one place to read about popular news stories.

The reason for this growing trend is thanks to a man named Greg Marra.

Mr. Marra, 26, a Facebook engineer, and a his team designs the code that drives Facebook’s News Feed — the stream of updates, photographs, videos and stories that users see.

According to the New York Times article, “How Facebook Is Changing the Way Its Users Consume Journalism,” about 1.3 billion people log on to Facebook at least monthly.

This drives up to 20 percent of traffic to news sites, according to figures from the analytics company SimpleReach.

The fact the Facebook can be accessed on a smartphone or a tablet the percentage is still increasing.

What Marra and his team figured out is that most readers now come to news articles not through the print editions of newspapers and magazines or their home pages online, but through social media and search engines driven by an algorithm, a mathematical formula that predicts what users might want to read.

However, it becomes a

concern to some because it is now in the computers to organize the news that you see, not the editors of certain newspapers, magazines or webpages.

It is feared that this effect society and way people consume information, and thus how they see the world.

Marra said in the interview with the New York Times, that he did not consider the impacts of journalism when he and his team created the algorithm.

“We try to explicitly view ourselves as not editors,” he said. “We don’t want to have editorial judgment over the content that’s in your feed.

You’ve made your friends, you’ve connected to the pages that you want to connect to and you’re the best decider for the things that you care about.” In my opinion all

E ditorial P olicy The Red & Black is the official, registered student-produced newspaper of Washington & Jefferson College. It is published Thursdays with the exception of exams and break periods.

Editorials are based upon the opinion of the respective writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper, the

College or its students, faculty, or administration.

The Red & Black welcomes all reader contributions, but reserves the right to reject letters of pure promotional nature, as well as letters which do not meet its standard of integrity, accuracy and decency.

The Red & Black also reserves the right to edit submissions.

Letters are due on the Monday before publication and may not exceed 600 words. All letters must include the author’s name, campus box and telephone number.

Names may be withheld upon request under certain conditions on rare occasions. All letters may be submitted to redandblackstaff@jay. washjeff.edu.

social media, not just Facebook, affects the way we see society, especially in news and with current events.

Marra and his teams weren’t trying to hinder certain outlets of media from being seen, they simply were trying to make it easier for

Courtesy commons.wikimedia.org

Facebook users to see what they like.

I think in a way it educates people about issues that are going on in the world, but at the same time they should remember not to believe everything they read on social media.

C ontac t Telephone: FAX: E-mail: Mailing Address:

(724) 223-6049 (724) 503-1049 redandblackstaff@jay. washjeff.edu Red & Black 60 S. Lincoln St. Washington, PA 15301

14 N ovember 2014

Red & Black

2014 Election: What Happened and What to do Next Thomas Marcotte Red&Black Editor Last week America once again tore its eyes away from Kim Kardashian and Modern Family to trudge to the voting booths and add its drop of water to the vast ocean of votes deciding the makeup of the government for the next two years. The most surprising feature of the election was by far how well the GOP did. The Republicans have expanded their hold in the House of Representatives, gained a slim majority in the Senate, and snapped up numerous governorships in many states, including Massachusetts. Mr. Obama will wait out his last two years in office as a lameduck president, and the Republicans seem to be revitalizing after the last six years of lackluster candidates and near-constant defeat.

If you had asked me a year ago for an opinion on the election, I would have said that I didn’t care which party won, since they were both the same when it came to the issues that I thought mattered, like freedom of speech and the militarization of the police.

I would have said that I didn’t care about the election beyond laughing at the absurd tears of my friends back home in the Bay State angsting about how the world is ending now that there’s a Republican governor in Boston.

Of course, mocking their narcissistic rage is exactly what I did anyway, because opportunities like this are just too

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Compulsory Voting in the U.S. Joseph Jorjoliani Red&Black Staff

good to pass up. But regardless of how many sweet, sweet hipster tears I may drink, I no longer believe that voting is useless. In fact, I think voting Republican is generally a good idea. Not because I really feel like the GOP can help fix the country as a whole, but because not voting gave me the kind of progressive malarkey that always follows the Democrats into power. And after six years of that, I’ve had enough of progressivism to last ten lifetimes.

So I guess in that sense, I’m the exact demographic the GOP seems to be targeting: angry white guys who are sick of being mocked as losers, demonized as bigoted oppressors, and having their concerns ignored in favor of whatever Buzzfeed tells the lowest common denominator to want.

In fact, that influx of angry white guys is probably a big factor in why the Republicans were able to take back so many elected positions. A lot of angry conservative white guys stayed home on Election Day the last few years, rather than vote for the senile and clueless failures the GOP put forward. So I think a lot of them are holding their noses

Courtesy heritageaction.com

and voting “R” anyway, just to make it all stop. Of course, angry white guys like me are quickly becoming a minority, and will need to really mobilize in numbers if they’re to be a credible threat against the Democratic coalition of smug hipsters, angry minorities, and low-information voters who believe whatever they see on the Daily Show. This brings me to the second factor in the Republicans’ success—most of the Democratic Coalition of Doom never shows up to vote.

This, I think, is because much of their coalition either just say they’re Democrats because it’s trendy, are possessed of a colossally high time-preference, or just plain doesn’t understand the point of any election that isn’t voting for the Dear Leader.

So let’s review: mobilizing angry white guys by appealing to issues they care about, when coupled with exploiting the apathy and general ignorance of most of the Democratic alliance of convenience, leads to big wins for conservatism. Now the Republicans need to both realize this is true, and embrace it rather than running away from the implications of it.

Voting is the determinant of a country’s future; therefore, a citizen must vote for his or her favorite candidate.

If the voters do not like any of the represented candidate, they could just vote against them but they should still vote. Voting should be compulsory in the United States.

There are several reasons why mandatory voting could work better than the current system.

First of all, a democratic country has to be governed by the people (sound familiar?).

If we really want to create a country where the majority decides who wins an election, compulsory voting is the first thing the United States must do.

If there is no mandatory voting, the wrong party might win an election and independent candidates would stay out of government.

This would be as a result of his electorate being lazy enough not to even go to a voting booth. If somebody really wants to vote for a candidate, he will leave their comfortable couch on Sunday morning and vote.

In this country, we have many undecided voters who just avoid the vote. This is because they do not care about politics. In this year’s midterm

elections, only 40% of America’s population has voted.

Can’t you see who’s decided the country’s future? Obviously, it is the minority of the United States.

Bigger attendance of elections could have made a significant difference. It doesn’t seem fair that somebody else will decide the next president of your country.

If the United States makes voting compulsory, citizens would be more involved in politics.

They would actively participate in the governance of their own country by taking part of elections.

There are many arguments against mandatory voting; each of which reflects a lack of faith in democracy itself.

One argument is that increasing the number of uninformed voters will lead to worse policymaking.

That presumes, however, that policymaking today sets a high-water mark of enlightenment.

It also sets up a viciously anti-democratic chiasma: if you don’t vote, you must be stupid and if you are stupid, you mustn’t vote.

Generations of your citizens marched, fought and died for the right to vote.

The least that citizens of a country can do is treat that right like a responsibility.

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Obsesity in America: A More Important Issue Than Ebola?

Siddhantha Bista Red&Black Staff

Often while viewing the news, individuals are most likely to see the epidemic and the deadly causes of Ebola.

However, here in America we have a health issue even more pressing than Ebola.

Obesity among U.S. adults is continuing to level off after several decades of skyrocketing growth. In our

modern world the cheap, high calorie food (for example, fast food — or “junk food”) include high amounts of salt, sugar or fats combined.

Furthermore, with our sedentary lifestyles, changing modules of transportation, it is by no surprise that obesity has rapidly increased.

Over the past 30 years, the obesity rates have tripled.

One in three adults are obese and over 29 million people have diabetes.

Recently, Trust for America's Health organization released a report that by 2030, half of the adults in America

would be obese unless they decided to change their ways.

Studies show that the largest attributing factor in this problem is the enormous quantities of sugar people consume on a daily basis.

Despite the attention of health professions, the media, public and the general mass of education, America still struggles with the issue of obesity.

Some consumptions are in the generic forms of, soda, donuts and cookies.

The World Health Organization in a report indicated that the average

person should only consume 25 grams of sugar, or in other words, 6 teaspoons.

A small 12 oz. can of CocoCola contains approximately 9 teaspoons (39 grams) of sugar, which is already 3 teaspoons (14 grams) of sugar mare than the daily allowance!

Obesity raises the risk of numerous diseases, from type 2 diabetes to endometrial cancer, meaning more sick people and higher medical costs in the future.

It is important to understand how much sugar is consumed on a daily basis, for it may result in severe

consequences. Well, what are some ways to ensure that people are eating a heathy diet?

First of all, the point cannot be reiterated enough, about how it is important to understand what is in our food. One easy way to start this process would be by looking at the nutrition label.

This most certainly help everyone make healthier choices about what they buy in the store.

Also, understanding the daily limits of certain foods can be a useful.

“White Collar” Returns to USA Network for Final Season Siddhantha Bista Red&Black Staff

White Collar is a crime/ mystery television show that premiered on October 23, 2009.

It is a USA Network television series created by Jeff Eastin.

The series features, Matt Bomer as Neal Caffrey, a former fraud, forger, thief and Tim DeKay as a FBI agent, Peter Burke.

The pairs are formed with characteristics that range from the opposite side of

the spectrum and they work towards arresting white collar criminals.

Neal Caffrey a former conman escaped from a high security prison to find his lost love.

However Peter Burke, in the process, captures Neal and his forced to return him to justice for the second time.

Rather than returning to jail, Neal proposes an alternative plan, in which he would use his criminal expertise to assist the Federal police in catching other elusive criminals.

Initially wary, Peter quickly found that Neal provides insight and intuition that could not be found on the right side of the law.

Since then, Peter and Neal have worked side by side and amassed an admirable record within the White collar crimes Unit, and created a bond of deep friendship among them.

As the common saying goes, once a con always a con.

Neal with his history and his unique skills has so far helped Peter in high profiled cases.

However, his methods have endangered both his friends and his fellow colleagues.

Eventually, in the series Neal earns a chance to have his sentence commuted, but when he realizes the scales of justice were unfairly weighted against him, Neal did the only thing left for him to do: he ran. On March 20, 2014, USA

Network renewed the series for a six-episode sixth season, and later announced as being the series' last “White Collar” with its premiere of season 6 returning last Thursday, November 6th.

There were many major events that were portrayed

Courtesy movingintonewyork..com

in that episode and it left the audiences awe-struck.

With the series soon coming to an end, the writers have made major decisions on every episode.

Will Neal Caffrey, with his past history finally be free?

How will things end for him?

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"The Theory of Everything" Recounts Stephen Hawking's Life Siddhantha Bista Red&Black Staff

“The Theory of Everything”, was released last Friday on November 7th. The film stars Eddie Redmayne ("Les Misérables") and Felicity Jones

("The Amazing Spider-Man 2"). This is an extraordinary story of one of the world's greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking’s who falls deeply in love with his fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.

Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an imperative diagnosis at 21 years of age.

The movie is sensitively directed towards the inspira-

tional British physicist, Stephen Hawking, and how his mind-over-body struggle with the motor neuron disease or commonly known as ALS. The doctor gives his life expectancy a frame of 2 years.

Jane is strong while dealing with all kinds of problems.

She's a woman trying to have an academic career and a family at a time when that really seems impossible.

Jane is constantly torn between Hawking. The person

she married because she truly loves him, but also his life expectancy is only two years, leaving her befuddled.

Together the two characters, embark on a ambitious scientific work field.

Studying the very thing Hawking now has precious little of - TIME. They defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science discoveries.

The film is based on the memoir “Traveling to Infin-

ity: My Life with Stephen,” by Jane Hawking, and is directed

by Academy Award winner James Marsh and written by Anthony McCarten.

The movie is one of a bittersweet love story but at the same time also includes good humor.

So far the critics have been rated this movie highly.

“A well- chosen location of the film put’s it at high standards across the boards”, says one.

The Questionable Business Behind Famous Internet Memes Emily Sterk Red&Black Editor This past summer, I was among 500 other shameless individuals standing in line for a cat - Grumpy Cat. Grumpy Cat made an appearance on behalf of Chronicle Books at New York City’s BookCon and offered two hours of her time to take pictures with fans and fellow grumps.

Grumpy Cat was expected to arrive at one in the afternoon, yet the line for photoops was already a mile deep shortly after BookCon’s doors opened at 9 AM. At the time, I saw no problem with standing in line for 2 hours to get my picture taken with a cat.

Tarter-Sauce, Grumpy’s original name, is an internet sensation and an icon to those

who relate to that feeling of constant grumpiness.

Yet, shortly after TarterSauce’s visit to BookCon, I

but in her own movie entitled “Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever.”

As a two year old cat,

lion, Grumpy Cat has her own manager, Ben Lashes, who also represents Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat. I appreciate a

Courtesy huffingtonpost.com

began to notice that she was making appearances everywhere: American Idol, The Bachelorette, Honey Nut Cheerio commercials and even the WWE’s Monday Night Raw. At the end of the month, Grumpy Cat will de-

Tarter-Sauce has achieved more than the average human being. In addition to her TV appearances, books, calendars, stuffed toys, and “Grumppuchinos” have been created in her honor. With a reported net-worth of $1 mil-

Grumpy Cat t-shirt that says “I had fun once; it was awful” (I in fact own one) and laptop decals that say, “Nope” (I sport one of these, too). However, I am not sure I take a liking to Grumpy’s owners hoarding her off to crowded and over-

whelming events just to make money.

Her owners have expressed that Tarter-Sauce is not exploited and that her exposure is limited. “Ninety-nine percent of the time she is just a regular cat,” her owner states.

I beg to differ. Ninetynine percent of the time she is off shooting a movie or being fondled by strangers who want a selfie with the famous Grump.

It is time to respect the fact that although Grumpy Cat is a fun Internet meme, she is more than a meme.

She is a real cat who should not be forced to spend her life traveling and being around the public eye just so her owners can make an exorbitant amount of money.

Tarter-Sauce's owners: your fifteen minutes of fame is up.

18 The SUPERBURGER “Calm Down, It’s Just a Joke”

Red & Black

14 N ovember 2014

BREAKING NEWS: Black Bears Seen on Campus Diana Ciarallo Red&Black Editor

Attention! Local Washington & Jefferson students and faculty have recently been receiving one too many scares over the last month after spotting several black bears roaming around the campus.

Each and every one of them, weighing at least about 100 to 200 pounds, have been spotted almost everywhere: Greek Row, Rossin Center, the quad area; you name it, they’ve been there and, after having caused quite a stir, they are quickly becoming a social media sensation.

However, the reason for their recent internetpopularity is not for the reason that you might be thinking, because, no, they are not here to terrorize anyone.

In fact, after the initial shock of these appearances had

passed, people were actually pleasantly surprised to find that these bears were not at all wild, but were really trained performers who were unfortunately separated from their circus troupe.

In return for the faculty’s kind offer of helping the bears return to their fellow carnies, these esteemed thespians have offered to put on a show for the whole campus.

So then out came the trampolines, the tutus, the unicycles and the firing cannons, the circus has come to our campus and these furry celebrities are getting noticed everywhere.

One student recently stated, “A bunch of people started getting texts saying stuff like, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! The Bears are outside our room!”

Another was on his way to the library when he spotted

them doing a rendition of Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty.”

“They were about 20 feet in front of me and I was kind of taken aback,” he said. “I asked them for an autograph, but they said they were too busy practicing and didn’t have any time to interact with fans at the moment.”

The Bears have set up their camp in a tree and have, unfortunately, had a few iffy encounters with some of the W&J Campus Policemen, who are still unconvinced of the performers’ peaceful intentions.

One of these incidents involved the latter firing tranquilizer darts into the Bears temporary residence and causing a few to tumble from their perch. Thankfully, being the artful acrobats that they are, they managed to effortlessly land on their paws

AWWWWWWWW!!!

and none of them were hurt.

One of the police even admitted, “It was really a perfect landing.”

So, all in all, lets give a warm welcome to these talented bears, hope that they have a pleasant stay here on our campus, enjoy the perfectly well crafted performance that they have kindly put together

Courtesy dailymail.co.uk

for us and wish them luck as they find their way back to their troupe.

Also, as for all the other bears out there who are terrorizing college campuses, you should all be ashamed of yourselves. Clean up your acts, get off the streets and take a lesson from your more well-mannered cousins.

Fry Wars: Controversy Rocks W&J over Which Type is Best

Shannon Adams Red&Black Staff In the past week, we have seen much excitement and debate over the fries that are served at G&Ts. We never thought a fight would actually break out of the dispute, but alas, it did. It was right before close at G&Ts which means everyone was there trying to use their last meal swipe of the day before closing time.

I was also on my way to use my last swipe to get cereal; it can’t be healthy to eat all

that fried food after 10 p.m.

Rumor was that they still had seasoned waffle fries from earlier that day, which the majority of the school seems to favor. However, they were gone and all that was left were the not crunchy, floppy, McDonald’s shoestring fries.

A male student wearing a Washington & Jefferson hoodie exclaimed, “Yeah man! These are the best fries! Victor, you picked the best one!” At that statement several heads poked out of

the booths around the dining area to watch the absurd man rant about how delicious the horrible fries are.

Another male student walked up to the grill counter and asked Victor where all the seasoned waffle fries went.

“A couple students came in and ordered 6 value fries and wiped us all out.” You can see the rage on the students face as he glared at the soggy fries that just came out of the fryer.

“It’s alright man, these fries are better anyways,” the W&J-

clad student said as he clapped him on the back.

The other student pushed the hoodie student’s hand away in fury and yelled, “How could you ever say that? The seasoned waffles are superior to all potato products.” The hoodie student sat down his G&T’s cup and pushed the other student backwards.

“Have you ever had these fries? You have to be kidding me.” The hoodie student picked up a handful of his shoestring fries and shoved

them in the other student’s mouth. “Taste these and tell me that they are not superior!”

The hoodie student said as he continually shoved fries in the other student’s mouth.

By the time all his fries were gone, the assaulted student was laying on the ground grabbing at his stomach with a look of disgust on his face. The last words he uttered before he was escorted to the hospital to get his stomach pumped were: “I’m so, so sorry, Seasoned Waffle--please forgive me.”

14 N ovember 2014

SPORTS 19

Red & Black

Athlete Spotlight: Wrestler Nick Carr Wins Big in Weight Class Ioseb Jorjolani Red&Black Editor Junior Nick Carr won the 157lb. bracket as the Washington & Jefferson wrestling team opened the 2014-15 season at the Messiah Invitational.

Carr, the nation's No. 1-ranked wrestler in his weight-class, pushed through the 157-pound bracket with ease during the openinground. He defeated his opponent in the third-round against Liberty's Alex Ramos 5:25 into the match. He then

earned a score of 17-3; a major decision against Messiah's Jason Ayers in the quarterfinals.

In the semifinals, Carr topped McDaniel's Luke Yox in a major decision, 10-2, before posting a 6-4 decision over Messiah's Larry Cannon in the finals.

“Messiah has a very good team; they rank number two in the nation and it was an important tournament. I am glad we won,” said Carr.

His career in wrestling began early on, when his father taught the then preschool-

aged Carr the basics of wrestling.

“One day, when I was five years old, my father dragged me in a wrestling room and taught me how to wrestle; since then, I have been wrestling for all my life,” said Carr.

Nick Carr’s victories are not surprising to anybody here at W & J. He’s had a chance to qualify for the Greco-Roman wrestling Olympic team, but he refused to do so.

“I had a chance to go to trials, but I think I am not good enough. I know it is a bad at-

titude, but I am honest to myself. If I feel that I am ready for such a hard task, I will go for it but right now I do not feel I can make it,” responded Carr.

Carr remains undefeated this season. This Saturday, W&J is hosting a College Wrestling Invitational in Henry Memorial Gym. Nick Carr says he is going to win ,no doubts about it.

He maintains his triumphant attitude and believes that attitude plays the most important role in his victories.

“Training enforces me, I wres-

tle at least once a day whether it is in the gym or at home,” he continues.

“This attitude, however, is the most precious thing that helps me win. In every sport, knowing that you are the best and nobody can defeat you is the determinant factor to win.”

This upcoming tournament is just a preparation for the National tournament for Nick Carr. I hope and I am sure Carr will take this attitude and win yet another victory this weekend.

14 N ovember 2014

SPORTS 20

Red & Black

The Penguins Report: Update on the Season So Far

Sidney Crosby has proven once an enormous asset to the Penguins this season, with 7 goals and 5 assists thus far.

Josh Dewaine Red&Black Staff The Pittsburgh Penguins started off this season fresh with a new general manager, a new head coach and a lot of new faces in the lineup. It didn't take long for the Penguins to get to know each other and to come out firing on all cylinders.

The Penguins won their first game of the season in commanding fashion, 6-4.

Since then, the Penguins are 10-2-1, losing in regulation to the Dallas Stars, the Philadelphia Flyers, and to the

Detroit Red Wings in overtime.

The season has had an explosive start, as the Penguins have scored a league-best 55 goals in 13 games, averaging a nearly unprecedented 4.23 goals a game. Veteran players from the lineup have been making a massive impact on the game.

Simon Despres, for example, has been having one of the best seasons of his career this season. So far, Despres has 1 goal and 4 assists; even though the numbers may not do his skills the complete justice they are due, Despres has

had a massive influence on the game.

One of the new faces in the lineup is Patric Hornqvist, who was traded to the Penguins from the Nashville Predators; he has been making quite an impact on the offensive line. Hornqvist has been playing on the first line alongside Sydney Crosby and Kris Kunitz; the trio combined has a total of 22 goals and 37 assists for a total of 59 points and are +10 overall.

Sydney Crosby has been an unstoppable force, with 7 goals and 17 assists, with five of the assists coming from the

6-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Nov 8th.

The dominating offense has allowed the Penguins to score 5 or more goals in 5 games and are 5-0-0 when they do.

Not surprisingly, the Penguin’s main strength over the course of this season has been converting a lot of points, scoring 21 times--eight more than any other team in the league and converting on almost 40% of their attempts, ane xtremely unexpected feat in most NHL teams.

On the other hand, the penalty killing has been clocking in at 88.46% which has

Courtesy thescore.com

so far allowed only six power play goals. there is more happy news concerning Marc Andre Fleury’s contract. Fleury got his contract extended an additional 4 years, so far this season, he has been playing as though he really intends to carry through on that promise. Fleury’s numbers are also looking very good--he is currently 9-2-0 with a 1.9 GAA and a .931 SV%.

With numbers like that, Fleury and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins already have their eyes on the prize, the Stanley Cup.